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Recently Released Research, Publications, Practice Briefs, and Other Information

 

Economically Disconnected Families Involved with Child Welfare Services in Washington State

Leroy H. Pelton once noted that poverty is an enduring characteristic of parents involved with the child welfare system. This report seeks to further our understanding of the economic condition of caregivers and their engagement with the child welfare system by focusing attention on economically disconnected families (those who are neither employed nor receiving cash assistance from the government). Assisting parents in obtaining any benefits they might be eligible for could improve their ability to provide for themselves and their children and may increase their level of engagement with child welfare services.

From Evidence to Practice: Poverty and Housing Instability

Research has shown a link between poverty, homelessness or substandard housing and child welfare involvement; in fact, housing instability is often the reason families come to the attention of child welfare in the first place and, in some cases, housing issues hinder family reunification efforts (Torrico, 2009). This Evidence to Practice brief touches on some of the implications of poverty and housing instability on families involved in child welfare, and highlights a multi-partner effort to address one part of this equation.

POC Newsletter Supplement: Changes to TANF

Recently, a number of supports and public benefits to low-income families and children were reduced through budget cuts and policy changes. This newsletter supplement summarizes major changes to TANF.

Timing of Permanency Exits from Out-of-Home Care: The Importance of Systems and Implications for Assessing Accountability for Permanency Outcomes

For children in out-of-home care who cannot return home, child welfare agencies generally seek legal permanency through adoption or guardianship. However, there are state and local variations in the chances children enter ing care will achieve permanency and the time it takes for this to occur. Understanding why these variations occur is critical for improving outcomes and efforts to hold child welfare agencies accountable for outcomes. To examine this issue more closely, this study looked at how children’s involvement in the dependency court process is related to the timing of achieving reunification, adoption or guardianship in Washington State.

From Evidence to Practice: Case Resolution Meetings

On any given day in Washington State, roughly 11,000 children are involved in the child welfare system. Extended time in foster care can negatively impact a child’s overall sense of belonging, identity formation, and emotional well-being. This Evidence to Practice brief highlights the Case Resolution Meeting, a practice innovation that brings key players in a case, including legal parties, together to identify barriers to permanency for children who have been in care longer than 15 months and to brainstorm pathways to permanency for these children.

POC Newsletter Supplement: ESSB 5656 - The Washington State Indian Child Welfare Act

Recently, the 2011 Washington State Legislature passed ESSB 5656, the Washington State Indian Child Welfare Act. POC asked two members of the state's Indian child welfare community for background and comments on the effects of this act.

Washington State OPD Parents Representation Program Study

The Parents Representation Program (PRP) was developed by the Washington State Office of Public Defense (OPD) and the 1999 Washington State legislature to enhance the quality of defense representation for parents in dependency and termination hearings. In 2010, POC conducted a study on the impact of PRP, looking at the program's influence on the speed with which children are reunified, adopted or enter guardianships.

From Evidence to Practice: Family Visitation in Child Welfare

Children who have regular, frequent contact with their family while in foster care have more positive experiences: a greater likelihood of reunification, shorter stays in out-of-home care, and overall improved emotional well-being and positive adjustment to placement. The following practice brief was written for Children’s Administration and Washington State courts to provide a framework for best practice and opportunities to support and improve prac­tice around visitation.

Research and Publications

Solution Based Casework research: Parent, worker, supervisor survey

DSHS asked Partners for Our Children to conduct an independent evaluation of whether Washington State's new child welfare casework model improves outcomes for children and families. These are the results of the baseline survey of parents, social workers and supervisors.

  • What are we learning from the Solution Based Casework Evaluation?
    Mark Courtney presented highlights of this project at the University of Washington to a group of social workers, Children's Administration staff and MSW students in June, 2010.
  • Presentation to Legislature
    On January 14, 2010, POC Research and Development Director Mark Courtney presented highlights from this survey to the Washington State House of Representative's Early Learning and Children's Services Committee.
  • Legislative fact sheet
    This is the fact sheet handed out with Mark Courtney's presentation on January 14, 2010.
  • Supervisor survey: Full report. Evaluation of Washington State Department of Social and Health Services Children Administration's Solution Based Casework Practice Model Interim Report: Part II Supervisors' Baseline Survey Results
    Sandra Lyons, Mark Courtney, Maureen Newby, JoAnn Lee
    February 2009
  • Supervisor Survey: Questionnaire
  • Supervisor Survey: Fact sheet
  • Worker Survey: Full report. Evaluation of Washington State Department of Social and Health Services Children Administration's Solution Based Casework Practice Model Interim Report: Part III Social Workers' Baseline Survey Results
    Sandra Lyons, Mark Courtney, Maureen Newby, JoAnn Lee
    March 2009
  • Worker Survey: Questionnaire
  • Worker Survey: Fact sheet
  • Parent Survey: Full report. Evaluation of Washington's Solution Based Casework Model Interim Report: Part IV Baseline Parent Survey Analysis by State, Region, and Service Context
    Maureen Marcenko, Maureen Newby, JoAnn Lee, Mark Courtney, Kathy Brennan
    November 2009
  • Parent Survey: Questionnaire
    In addition to answering our questionnaire, parents responded to selected portions (or scales) from the  Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). This brief diagnostic instrument assesses adult mental health concerns such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder -- as well as alcohol and substance dependency.
  • Parent Survey: Fact sheet

 

Youth aging out of foster care:

Young people who "age out" of foster care as teens face major challenges into their early 20's, often unable to complete their education, or find housing and jobs, according to a national study conducted by Partners for Our Children at the University of Washington School of Social Work and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. In most states -- including Washington -- foster care services typically terminate at age 18, leaving the often unprepared young people on their own. This report is the fourth in a series that followed over 700 youth in foster care for six years, from about age 18 to about age 24. Previous reports in this series can be found on the Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago website.

Foster Parent Support Pilot Study

POC worked with Children’s Administration and the Mockingbird Society to conduct a pilot study of the Mockingbird Family Model (MFM), to determine if MFM is an effective way of providing foster care through the state public child welfare system. Due to a low rate of participation on the part of foster parents as well as funding constraints, the study was discontinued earlier than expected. While the MFM worked well for the families that were involved, it was not possible to draw any conclusions about the impact of the MFM on the outcomes for foster children and families because it couldn’t be rigorously evaluated on a larger scale. The study did provide some insight into the types of support foster parents may need.

Foster parent  recruitment and retention: 

Like many other child welfare systems across the country, Washington State is trying to do a better job of recruiting and retaining foster parents. As part of this effort, the Department of Social and Health Services Children's Administration asked Partners for Our Children to identify challenges and opportunities for improvement.

Foster Youth Transitioning into Adulthood

One week after the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 became law, Partners for Our Children and the Juvenile Law Center convened a meeting in Seattle to discuss how this new legal framework could be used to smooth the transition of foster youth into adulthood. Although the timing of the convening was coincidental, it allowed participants to use FCSIA's new context to address the legal and court framework for older foster youth, as well as the issues of housing, employment, education, physical and behavioral health, and permanency planning.